| Session Details | |
| Section | AS - Atmospheric Sciences |
| Session Title | Early Warning System for Hydro-Meteorological Disasters over Asia-Pacific Region |
| Main Convener | Dr. Raju Pemmani (Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, Thailand) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Subbiah AR (Asian Disaster Preparedness Center,, Thailand) Dr. Ravichandran M (Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, India) Prof. Uma Charan Mohanty (Indian Institute of Technology, India) |
| Session Description | Early warning systems over Asia-Pacific region have received significant importance over the past few years due to enhanced occurrence of hydro-meterological hazards in the context of global warming scenario. Severe hydro-meterorlogical hazards such as tropical cyclones, thunderstorms, heat/cold waves, heavy rainfall and associated floods are causing enormous loss of life and damages to livelihoods every year. The recent events of Tsunami (south and south East Asia) in 2004, Bangladesh floods in 2007, Severe Cyclone Nargis (Myanmar) in 2008 etc. are a few examples. The end-to-end early warning system involving the following components; observation, detection, monitoring, analysis, forecasting and development of hazard warning messages, assessing potential risks and integrating risk information into warning messages. Dissemination of timely, reliable and understandable warning messages to authorities and public at-risk are also important for effective community-based emergency planning, preparedness to reduce potential impact on lives and livelihoods. With the rapid advancement of computing facilities, enhancement of space based observations and improvement in atmospheric models, accurate location specific forecast of severe weather events can be possible. Further, enhanced disaster preparedness and response arrangements, have significantly reduced loss of lives despite an increase in the number of disaster events in present climate change scenario, entailing serious socio-economic setbacks in the aftermath of a disaster. In view of the above, the proposed session is to deal with observations, accurate and long lead forecast of hydro-meteorological disasters including tsunami and effective disaster management strategies over Aisa-Pacific region. |